


to speak so kindly even to the devil

by JennaCupcakes



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Crisis of Faith, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Faith, M/M, Miscommunication, Religious Themes, Slow Burn, but he gets there eventually, crowley is not the sharpest tool in the shed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 22:11:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19385605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaCupcakes/pseuds/JennaCupcakes
Summary: Somehow, when Crowley rebelled against Heaven, he didn't think of the consequences. As a reward, he gets to live through the six-thousand-year-long fallout.





	to speak so kindly even to the devil

The thing was.

So, the thing was.

The fall.

He hadn’t really devoted much time to thinking about it, he realized it, as he slithered along the walls of Eden just above the Eastern Gate. Falling had just sort of… happened, and then it was time for his assignment on Earth, and before he knew it, all of the events had been set in motion.

Except.

He was still here, and he would have to find something to do with himself for the next couple of thousand years.

Which was where the absence came in.

He’d noticed it first just after the thing with the apple – the point at which events had culminated and then, for the first time in the short span of human history, receded. From then on, Crawley had had nothing to do except notice the absence.

It was a nagging feeling, like wondering whether one had left the stovetop on, except stovetops hadn’t been invented yet. It was the terrible surety that something was amiss, except Crawly couldn’t remember what _something_ was.

Where there had once been faith, there was nothing.

Crawley observed the hole with morbid curiosity, reptilian eyes and the instinct of billions of humans coming after him, who found picking at a scab just too damn _tempting_ – he would take credit for that one later. Ever texted an ex after one too many drinks? Yeah, you could thank Crawley for that.

The hole was jagged, like something had recently been ripped out. A theological problem. Could a demon – a fallen angel – feel the absence of faith?

How could he not believe in God? He _knew_ She existed. This shouldn’t be possible.

The blasted angel of the Eastern Gate was still here as well, of course. If Crawley was being honest with himself – a habit he stoically declined to pick up and would decline to pick up for nearly six thousand years – he had sought out the Eastern Gate for particularly that reason: to see if his nemesis on Earth was still here, after everything had been kickstarted.

He was, and he was looking rather worried, which pleased Crawley.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

He abandoned his snake form so as to better smirk at the angel. The angel – Aziraphale – turned, and then glowered at him.

“Aha!” He exclaimed. “The Serpent! I recognized your handwriting the minute I saw it! Demonic temptation, so uncivilized…”

Crawley just smiled, because the angel was, quite frankly, adorable. Had Crawley been like this, once upon a time? Probably not. He had always been a pain in the ass of the angelic host. This one was more of a… pinprick, probably. Put on guard duty because he wouldn’t do elsewhere.

“Yeaaah, I did good on that one,” Crawley grinned, “It seems you and me will have our hands full, now that they know the difference.”

“What do you mean?” the Angel asked.

“Good, evil, the whole shebang,” Crowley responded, “I’ll say tomato, you’ll say tomahto. And I suppose one of us will triumph, eventually.”

There it was again. The nagging. It taunted him, the way it was made only of absence. He couldn’t shake it.

“I suppose,” Aziraphale repeated, though he didn’t sound so sure himself.

A thought came to Crawley’s mind.

“Hey, do you–” He trailed off for a second, trying to come up with a nonchalant way of phrasing his question. This was his enemy after all. “Do you feel any different, since the… whole thing with the apple and the tree?”

Pockets wouldn’t be invented for a while, so he didn’t have anything to hook his thumbs into in order to look sort of cool. He had to make do with shifting in place a little bit.

“Whatever do you mean?” Aziraphale asked, “Everything’s changed, of course!”

“I only meant… well.” Crawley bit his tongue. “We’re on Earth now, right? Figures it’s a little harder to get a… connection to upstairs.”

“A connection?” Aziraphale frowned. “Her divine presence and love is as clear to me as ever.”

Crawley looked at the angel. Really _looked_ at him, radiance and all. This was not a being who felt an absence of faith in God.

No, it was Crawley.

He had fallen, or had sauntered downwards, but fallen he was now.

Crawley no longer believed in God. 

* * *

He was watching a man shovel dirt into a ditch when Aziraphale next showed up, resonating radiance. Crawley couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Ah, humans.” Aziraphale exclaimed. “Ever so industrious! I do love that about them.”

“He’s burying his brother,” Crawley remarked dryly.

“Oh, but whatever happened? Abel was in such good health only yesterday! Not another lion, I hope?”

Again, Crawley wondered if he had once been like that. Asking only the most innocent of questions. Always assuming the best in people.

“He killed him, angel,” Crawley said, “Cain killed Abel, because God liked Abel’s sacrifice better.”

His mouth curled in distaste. “It’s so petty, isn’t it? Where’s God’s divine love in all of this? Encouraging sibling rivalry?”

“I suppose you had something to do with it,” Aziraphale said tartly.

“Oh, I only pointed out the fundamental injustice of the situation,” Crawly said, “Picking favourites? Really? You wouldn’t expect that sort of thing from God.”

“It’s all part of the Great Plan,” Aziraphale said patiently, though Crawly could already tell his patience was wearing thin. After all, the angel hadn’t been sent to earth to argue with demons, who were already fallen. He probably saw it as a waste of his time.

“Hmpf,” Crawly replied, “Sure. If that’s what you want to believe.”

“ _I_ choose to believe in the wisdom of the Almighty,” Aziraphale said. Crawly couldn’t help the stab of envy he felt at that, but he probably wasn’t supposed to help it, anyway. A rather demonic emotion, really. Envy.

And, looking at Cain, he decided, rather topical.

“Suit yourself,” Crawly said, and slunk away. He couldn’t wait for a time when he and the angel wouldn’t have to share custody of the only source of entertainment around the place. 

* * *

In Galilea, he met a young carpenter in the desert. The man had been fasting for forty days. Crowley – who had changed his name – had it on good authority that he was hailed by some as the son of God. At the very least, he was another one of those prophets.

“You know, if you’re the son of God, why don’t you just tell these stones to become bread?”

Crowley, who had materialised a couple of minutes previously to watch the young man, pointed at a pile of rocks. They were dusty, like most everything in the desert.

The carpenter smiled with the serenity that galled Crowley so much about Aziraphale. Blasted divine types, so sure in their faith.

“That would rather defeat the purpose of fasting, wouldn’t it?”

His voice was quiet but steadfast. A voice to listen to, Crowley thought.

“But you do need to eat at some point,” Crowley reasoned, sitting down next to the carpenter on the ground. He had his hair tied loosely together. His reptilian eyes were plainly visible in the midday sun. But the carpenter did not flinch. He didn’t even stare with the curiosity Crowley had gotten from some braver individuals. He simply looked at Crowley as though he saw something deeper.

“Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

“You know, I think you just invented dieting,” Crowley said dryly. “Come on, let me show you something.”

With a wave of his hand and a passing thought, the desert around them vanished, and was replaced by the windy top of the temple in Jerusalem.

“Why don’t you jump down there. I’m sure God will save you.”

She’d probably sent Aziraphale to interfere, but that was just as well. It would bother the angel, which was a win for Crowley.

The carpenter smiled. Maybe he was a bit slow, Crowley wondered. Not even Aziraphale had this much patience with him.

“I don’t need to test God to know I would be saved. That is what faith is.”

Crowley let out an annoyed hiss and vanished them from the temple, back to the desert. Faith. He had killed people for less (well, severely inconvenienced them, anyway). What could this nobody from a backwater town in the Middle East know about Crowley’s faith?

“We’ll make a deal, okay?”

Crowley rolled up his sleeves, expanding his arms in a wide gesture. Before them, the image of the desert flickered like a fata morgana, and then a wide expanse of land, water and continents, shrunk down to scale, appeared before them. A map of the world. And not even a Mercator projection.

“What do you say to that? All the kingdoms of the world! You don’t need to take it on faith, I’ve got them right here. All you need to do is bow down and worship my boss.”

For a moment, the carpenter looked out. Europe, just North of them, was green with luscious forests. North America was a bustling expanse of agriculture, steppes and forests, South America was practically teeming with life. It was beautiful. And that was only the earth.

“It’s beautiful,” the carpenter said.

Then he shook his head.

“I’d like to be alone now.”

“You’re going to think about it, right?” Crowley said. “All the kingdoms of the world…”

He tried to make it sound appealing: his best seduction, voice drooping with honey-sweet temptation – but the carpenter only laughed ruefully.

“I do not need your promises. I have my faith. I believe in God, and I worship only God.”

The sting Crowley felt was probably only the collective demonic disappointment in the failed temptation. This would have been a big one. It definitely had nothing to do with the fact that Crowley was staring blind faith right in the eye – and still couldn’t fathom it.

He walked away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Aziraphale approaching, but he didn’t stop to say hi. That would have been more righteousness than he could bear for a day.

* * *

They moved on from the Middle East eventually, heading to Rome. Crowley acquired tinted glasses from a skilled glassblower.

Rome was… Rome was beyond words. It was unimaginably large, for once, varied, for all intents and purposes not just the capital of an empire but _the_ Empire. It was preposterous in its self-importance, the way it took and took and took for itself from the lands it conquered. It was beautiful.

“You know, they call this the eternal city!”

There were oysters on the table at his side, and, across the table, reclining on a _sedes_ , the angel called Aziraphale. Crowley didn’t quite know why exactly he’d agreed to this. A temptation, the angel had said. Now there was a turn of phrase that struck a little close to home. There was no reason in heaven or hell why Crowley should be eating oysters – or any dish, really – with his enemy. Except… except there was a secret part of him that _wanted_ to.

So here they were, in the eternal city, pre-Christian Rome. Eating oysters. Like _acquaintances_.

Crowley looked around.

“Can you really see all these people converting to a monotheistic religion?” he asked. This was becoming a pattern: Crowley asked a question and Aziraphale gave an unsatisfying answer. It felt like enacting his fall over and over again.

“Not really my department,” Aziraphale said between bites, “Though I imagine they’ll sweeten the pot a bit. Keep some of the pagan holidays. I heard they’re considering a concept called _sainthood_. To make the transition easier. They’ll replace some of the minor deities that people pray to now, except they’ll be humans so there’s not confusion.”

Crowley frowned.

“How are they going to square _that_ with the whole ‘I am the Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before me’ thing? She only just made them write it down on those big stone slabs! It was a whole thing!”

He’d been there for that, though – contrary to popular belief – he’d had nothing to do with the whole calf idea. Had he been asked for his input, he would have suggested something a little more imposing than a baby cow.

Whenever Aziraphale talked about heaven, Crowley was baffled. The mental gymnastics that these people would go through just to secure a few more souls for their side. Sainthood! It made him remember just why he had never fit in particularly well.

“I imagine that’s a theological argument for future generations.”

Aziraphale seemed unbothered by it. Not his department, a problem for another day.

“I wish I had your confidence, angel,” Crowley said, reaching for an oyster himself. They really were quite good, though Crowley was put off by the consistency. He had to leave it to Aziraphale, though – the angel had taste.

“It’s not confidence, Cra– Crowley. It’s faith.”

Crowley was getting so tired of people alluding to their damned _faith_. It had been roughly four thousand years since his fall. He could barely even remember what _faith_ felt like. Over the years it had gone from a searing absence to something half-remembered to something he could barely believe was a real thing people felt. It all seemed so theatrical. Crowley _knew_ things wouldn’t turn out for the better. He was the one who made sure they didn’t.

But Aziraphale was an angel.

“Humour me,” Crowley said.

The non-sequitur pulled Aziraphale out of his oyster-induced haze.

“Could you hold on to that thought really tightly for a second? All this faith you feel. Picture it.”

Aziraphale frowned. So maybe it was a strange request. Aziraphale probably thought Crowley was planning something demonic.

“Humour me,” Crowley repeated, trying for his best non-threatening grin. It was a far cry from harmless (his teeth always a little too snakelike) but pleasing enough that people usually chose to interpret it as benign.

“Alright,” Aziraphale said after about half a minute of failing to discern any malicious intent in Crowley’s request. He sounded half-curious, as if remembering that curious wasn’t something he was supposed to be.

In an adorable act of deep concentration, Aziraphale screwed his eyes shut. “Okay, I’m thinking!”

Crowley allowed himself a second of committing the picture in front of him to memory: Aziraphale, angel of the Lord, in a toga that looked like a bathrobe on him, round face contorted in concentration as he was humouring the whims of a demon he had no reason to trust.

Then Crowley reached into that deep part of him, the demonic essence that whispered to him and allowed him to discern the surreptitious desires and unspoken wishes of the people he met, so as to better lead them into temptation. And he focussed it on Aziraphale.

He thought he would get a glimpse, maybe, if he was lucky. He had been fairly sure that he would get no reading from the angel at all.

Instead what he got was –

bright. Blindingly bright, light so bright it made a sound as loud as a thousand nuclear bombs going off, and twice as hot. And through the noise and the light and the confusion, a steadfast pull. Unshakeable. Like a fishing hook lodged in his chest, pulling him forward inexorably. He was a tugboat. He was a celestial object set in its orbit. Nothing could touch him. Not the noise, not the light, nothing. He would – He could –

He shut it out. He pulled away, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his forehead, but even with all of his demonic sense directed safely away from Aziraphale in front of him, he was still painfully aware of what he had just felt. Because he had _recognised_ the feeling.

“Crowley!”

Aziraphale had half sprung from his couch, the look of concentration replaced by fright and concern. Crowley waved him off, just barely containing a wave of nausea. Okay, so maybe he, a demon, shouldn’t have tried that.

“I’m fine,” he said, though it came out less self-assured than he had hoped. It sounded like more of a croak, really.

“What did you _do_?” Aziraphale asked.

“Was just curious,” Crowley slurred while trying to focus on his breathing. It wasn’t usually this hard. In and out. Why did it require so much conscious effort all of a sudden?

“About _what_?”

“What you said before,” Crowley said between breaths, “Faith. Wanted to know what it feels like.”

“You did what? No wonder you look like that! It can’t have been healthy for you!”

Leave it to Aziraphale to fuss over his mortal enemy. Sometimes Crowley wondered if the angel wasn’t taking it a bit far with that whole compassion thing.

“Yeah, well, I know that _now_ ,” he shot back, careful to keep his voice to a conversation level. Not that making a scene would have caused either of them much trouble, but it would have been an annoyance.

After a while, his breathing slowed. The nausea passed. The absence in his chest remained.

Crowley righted himself. Aziraphale still looked at him with concern. Looking at the angel left him with a pale echo of what experiencing Aziraphale’s faith had felt like.

“It’s just been… a long time. Wasn’t sure I still remembered what it felt like,” Crowley admitted. He didn’t know why. Maybe he felt like he owed the angel an explanation.

“Oh.”

Aziraphale looked away, embarrassed. But then, because Aziraphale could so rarely contain his curiosity, he looked back, interest overcoming propriety.

“You can’t… feel it anymore?”

“I don’t believe in God,” Crowley said, as if it were that simple.

“Figures, I suppose,” Aziraphale said.

There were three oysters left on the plate between them. Crowley had lost his appetite and so, it seemed, had Aziraphale. There was a throbbing absence in Crowley’s chest that was going to take a lot of decades or a lot of alcohol to disappear again. Aziraphale was trying to look everywhere except at Crowley. Crowley decided it was time to make his exit.

* * *

When Rome didn’t shake out (Crowley loved overcomplex bureaucracies, they were so easy to manipulate), they packed up and headed to England.

Separately, of course.

It occurred to Crowley right around that time that he and Aziraphale were facing a mathematical problem: One of addition and subtraction of equal numbers. Aziraphale made an effort, and Crowley made an effort to the contrary, and everything stayed the same. Not more divine, not more hellish, just more… human.

For all the effort he put into it, the end result was really rather disappointing. Not that he had been making an effort to begin with. To speak of efforts would be overstating things.

He was, currently, in a castle, or what passed for a castle in those days. Coincidentally – serendipitously, one might say – Aziraphale was also there. The shockwaves of civilization collapsing on the Western half of the continent were slowly abating, and life on this little island could almost be termed peaceful (though not too peaceful, Crowley made sure of that). But civilization was still far and few between (mostly between large glades of forest) and so it happened more often than not that Crowley and Aziraphale ran into each other at a banquet such as tonight.

The room was furnished with long, solid wooden tables and benches to match. There was a central hearth that would be responsible for lung cancer in a few lucky humans who would live long enough for cancer to become a concern. The kitchen had started churning out food about three hours ago and did not seem inclined to stop anytime soon. Crowley couldn’t even remember what they were celebrating.

His seat neighbour to his right was a big, burly man who took first servings from all the platters that came out of the kitchen, only to turn around and insist to Crowley that he _absolutely must try this_. Crowley’s left seat neighbour seemed slighted that he was sitting down so far the banquet table. Crowley himself was unhappy with the seating arrangement as well. For one, he was sitting _just_ out of comfortable conversation range with the angel.

It wasn’t that he _wanted_ to talk to the angel. It was being robbed of the choice that galled him.

Somewhere down in the wine cellar, a year’s harvest of red wine turned sour.

As things stood, he alternated between making polite conversation with the foodie to his right and staring at Aziraphale, four seats down to his left on the opposite side of the table. The angel’s outfit always managed to be oddly out of place, and it was no longer strange to Crowley that he could begin to identify that as a quirk of Aziraphale’s. As things stood, Aziraphale was digging happily into the food, picking out all the same delicacies that Crowley’s seat neighbour recommended, or so Crowley imagined. He couldn’t really see from where he sat.

Crowley wondered what the angel was doing here.

Was this a birthday feast, maybe? He couldn’t very well ask now, that would be odd. But if this was a birthday feast, that might explain the presence of the angel – he would be here to bless the child, et cetera et cetera.

This was no fun. Crowley had to know, and he was getting frustrated.

Next chance he got – which was when the guest across from Aziraphale stood up to relieve himself, presumably somewhere outside the hall – Crowley extracted himself from his spot on the bench and slithered up a couple of seats.

Aziraphale jumped a little bit when Crowley plopped down in front of him.

“Crowley! I didn’t know you were here as well.”

His hands were gripping the edge of the table – more for steadying himself, less of a panicky grip.

“Not doing a very good job of keeping an eye on the wily old serpent then, are you?” Crowley grinned, “It’s good to see you, Aziraphale.”

“Oh. Well. I suppose it’s good to see you, too, Crowley.”

Pleasantries exchanged, Aziraphale pointedly turned his attention back to his food, glancing up every now and then to see if Crowley was still there. He was, and when the guest who had originally occupied the seat returned, a passing thought from Crowley directed him elsewhere.

Aziraphale noticed and sighed pointedly.

“What do you _want_?” he asked.

“Want?” Crowley asked, placing a hand on his chest. “Why do I have to want something? Can’t I just enjoy your company?”

“No, you can’t,” Aziraphale insisted, “That is, in fact, one of the few things your job description specifically excludes. So, in fact, does mine.”

“You can’t enjoy your own company?” Crowley said. He motioned to one of the passing servants for a goblet of ale.

“You know what I mean,” Aziraphale said. He was staring at his plate as if he was trying very hard to remember what to do with its contents.

The servant brought the cup. Crowley took a long sip. It was thick ale, rich with flavours. He still preferred wine, but this was good.

“So, what’s all this about?” Crowley asked in a conspiratorial whisper, leaning half across the table for exaggerated effect and gesturing towards the rest of the hall.

“You don’t know?”

Crowley shrugged.

Aziraphale tutted. “Well, you should really improve your research! Can’t very well do your job if you don’t even know where you are…”

Something about Aziraphale’s reaction struck Crowley as odd.

“You don’t know either, do you?” he said.

Aziraphale shot him a glare that was positively murderous. Crowley just threw his head back and laughed.

“Oh, this… this is good!”

Aziraphale sat across from him, shoulders stiff and gaze downcast.

“Look –” he began, but Crowley interrupted him. “What are you doing here, then? Did you take a wrong turn at the fork in the road? Lose your way in the blasted fog?”

Aziraphale mumbled something. Crowley leaned forward.

“What was that?”

“If you must know,” Aziraphale said exasperatedly, “I came here to try the ale. They say it’s the best in the land!”

Crowley looked at the angel, dumbfounded. The ale. But it was so perfectly like Aziraphale.

“I’m supposed to be on the other end of the island right now. I have a miracle to perform tomorrow. But I was on the road and I heard these two women talking about the ale and I thought to myself, what a shame, if I’m already in the neighbourhood…”

“So you snuck into the castle banquet to taste the ale?”

“I was _invited_ ,” Aziraphale protested.

The servant returned and filled Crowley’s and Aziraphale’s cups. Crowley was already so much more entertained than he had been with his previous conversation partners.

“How did that happen?”

Again, Aziraphale squirmed in his seat.

“Spit it out, angel! Don’t make me work for it…”

“I may have cured the son of his kidney infection,” Aziraphale said, “There, are you happy now?”

Not a blessed child but a cured one. Crowley had been close.

“I still don’t see how that’s a problem.”

“Well, now they won’t let me leave! And I don’t want to just disappear and throw the whole place into a fit over demons or some other sinister force.”

He gave Crowley an unsure glance. “No offense meant.”

Crowley waved it away. He had bigger fish to fry.

“I see. You’re stuck here, because you miracled your way in to get a taste of the castle ale, and now you can’t miracle your way out to perform the miracle you’re supposed to perform tomorrow.” Crowley laughed. “Miraculous.”

“It figures you would find this all very entertaining. Another win for your side, hmm?” Aziraphale took a knife to his bread with rather more force than necessary.

Crowley shrugged. “I don’t care much either way. Where did you say you have to be?”

“As if I would tell you,” Aziraphale said.

“No really, it’s no problem,” Crowley said, “You’re stuck here. I’ll just make up for it some other time. Or better yet, I’ll perform your miracle and a temptation and then we can meet back here and have some more of this ale.”

“You can’t possibly be serious,” Aziraphale said. But he had a look in his eyes that was just a little shy of desperate, like a drowning man seeing a branch to reach for doesn’t care that the branch is covered in thorns.

“I was an angel once. I still remember the ins and outs.”

Aziraphale sighed, relieved. “I suppose that makes it alright, then.”

Crowley held out his hand. “Shake on it?”

Aziraphale took his hand.

* * *

The market square was crowded.

Crowley should have expected this, really. A sufficiently large sample size and anything was possible, he reasoned. It was just good stochastic practise. He had always suspected that God didn’t play dice, not unless She was sure She would win.

The stalls weren’t even stalls in most cases, just cloth laid out on the ground with wares set on top. Others set up their carts and sold their wares from there: homespun fabrics next to fish, artisan’s tools next to the produce they helped make, cheese and ale and wine and bread and really anything one could imagine.

Well, maybe not Crowley, but the average market-goer in the English countryside. Crowley, personally, would have missed the spices, had he been in the business of buying. Food really was ever so bland here. Maybe he should open a falafel shop.

He strolled between the stalls, perusing and thinking about whether he should pick up something for Aziraphale while keeping an eye out for the target of his miracle. _Aziraphale’s_ miracle. Would the angel like this woollen overcoat dyed a deep blue? Or was that too much? Crowley really only wanted to tease him a little bit with the present, a reminder that Aziraphale had been stuck in a castle while Crowley had done all the work. The cloak was probably a bit much – it would cost a normal person a fortune, though it would only cost Crowley a thought.

Ah, he could always decide later.

A winning smile and a small suggestion later, Crowley held the cloak tucked under his arm and surveyed the market again. He was experiencing the first case of buyer’s remorse and filed it away as something to investigate on a grander scale later. That ought to get hell off his back for a few years at least.

Something pinged on his radar.

Crowley turned, and his gaze fell on a man in his forties. His hair was pepper grey but reasonably well-kept, his clothes worn but not fraying. He looked like someone repeatedly beaten by time, who had just gotten up again, dusted himself off and moved on without dwelling on it too long.

 _His wife passed away a couple of years ago_ , Aziraphale had told him, _and there was this woman he loved, when he was a teenager, only she moved away, and they never saw each other again_.

Target One acquired.

Making a mental note of the man’s position and his likely trajectory, Crowley took another lap of the market. On his second lap, he spotted her.

 _She’s the sweetest, most devout thing_ , Crowley, Aziraphale had said, _and Heaven would love for her to find love after the untimely passing of her husband._

Crowley had asked if this wasn’t all rather provincial, but Aziraphale had assured him that spreading love was right on top of the heavenly agenda. Crowley had swallowed whatever bitterness he felt at that.

The woman really seemed quite lovely. She had aged less well than the man she was supposed to meet, though she smiled and bantered with the merchants. Her fingers were bent inwards, like they were in some low-level constant pain, and her back was bent from a lifetime of hard work.

Target Two acquired.

Crowley searched the crowd and spotted the man easily, only one or two stalls down from where he had left him. Now, for the miracle. All it would take was one of them turning at the right time and then –

He focussed. He really concentrated.

Could it be that easy?

What were the odds? They hadn’t seen each other in over twenty years. They probably looked like different people entirely. How would they even recognise each other?

That was probably why they called it a miracle. Right.

Crowley focussed again. The man moved on to the next stall without turning. The woman, though meandering through the market, didn’t seem to be moving any closer to the man.

Crowley laughed shakily, incredulously. This _never_ happened to him! In several thousand years on this earth, his powers had never failed him. Until now.

Well, at least it wasn’t his ass on the line but Aziraphale’s – he stopped. Oh. _Oh_.

That was it. Nothing was happening because this situation didn’t just require intervention but _divine_ intervention. A _miracle_. Something that Crowley – a demon – was not able to perform. A miracle required faith. The unshakeable, steadfast belief that things would work out in the end, however unlikely.

The tugboat, orbital-path, nuclear-blast faith that Aziraphale had and Crowley didn’t.

Crowley’s shoulders sagged. In the marketplace full of people, the noise seemed to fall away. All he could hear was the rushing of blood in his ears and Aziraphale’s voice saying _jolly good_ after they had settled all the details of their bargain. He balled his hands into fists, barely suppressing the urge to scream. The blasted, damned unfairness of it all! To make it all hinge on faith!

The man moved up another stall. He was nearing the exit of the marketplace. Crowley was running out of time.

He could go talk to the woman. Or the man. That might work, but just as likely they would think he was strange and decide to leave altogether. No, this needed a real miracle and the only angel in the area capable of performing one was stuck in a castle because Crowley had insisted it would be fine.

It wasn’t that he cared about the prospective couple in particular. No, it was that for the first time since Rome, maybe for the first time since the garden he felt the rage and the terror and the spite that he had first felt after his fall.

“I don’t have to believe in you,” Crowley said to the empty air, “I can make this work, you hear me?”

He almost yelled the last part, which got him strange looks from the people around. He threw some suggestion into the air, and some people applauded. Let them think he was a performer.

He strode forward, and the crowd parted for him. He couldn’t perform the miracle. But he could do the opposite.

The man was haggling with a merchant over the length of a piece of cloth. Discord, added liberally, flowed out of Crowley’s outstretched hand.

“Are you trying to cheat me?”

The merchant’s voice was loud. Crowley could feel the outrage dripping off him. The argument got louder. Soon, they had a little audience.

At the other end of the market, Crowley pictured a little bit of a traffic jam. People crowded up too tightly, trying to find space, moving up… and pushing the woman in front of them. She had to move with the crowd, there wasn’t anywhere to go in the midst of people who had all decided they would rather not be in this place anymore. And along she came.

When she got close enough, Crowley relented on sowing discord in the cloth transaction. Slowly, though it had nearly come to blows, both men backed down and started settling on a price. Right on cue, as the press of people receded and the crowd around them faded, cloth and coins exchanged hands and – like a curtain falling back – the crowd parted to reveal the woman.

The man turned.

Crowley held his breath.

A smile spread across his face.

“Hedwig?”

Crowley gave the cloak to Aziraphale. When Aziraphale pressed him for specifics, Crowley refused to speak about it. He felt a strange mix of spite and emptiness, like he had achieved something monumental and had achieved nothing at all.

* * *

“So that whole sainthood thing really worked out, huh?” Crowley asked Aziraphale sometime in the mid-sixteenth century.

“I had really hoped you’d forgotten,” Aziraphale said.

* * *

Miracles didn’t work anymore.

Temptations were fine, obviously, and anything related to them. He could plant doubt in man’s mind just fine – after all, doubt was his core skillset. He could create cause for envy, inspire man to lust and covet, set a little murder in motion here and there.

But compared to what his skillset had been before, it was mediocre. It was dull. It was _insulting_.

When he had been an angel, miracles had come from the unshakeable faith that he was endowed with the divine power to shape the world towards good. He had assumed that, as a demon, things would work pretty much the same way, except that now he was endowed with the power to shape the world towards evil.

Angels were given leave by God to shape creation with all the power that had inspired the original genesis. If there was a limit to what angels could do, Crowley hadn’t seen it yet. Compared to that, his demonic powers were nothing more than Murphy’s law, really. All Crowley did was make sure that things that could turn out for the worse, did.

The real stuff – miracles, babies surviving for days in the wild, a chance meeting with an old friend on the street in a city of millions, a hundred-pound note stuffed into the back pocket of an old jeans – he couldn’t _do_ it anymore.

He still knew how to do it – he just needed to believe strongly enough that this was the way the world would shake out to be once all the chips had fallen – but that was precisely the problem. He couldn’t muster the belief.

And he was just fine with that.

As long as he told himself that, he could tolerate Aziraphale’s presence. A good thing, too, because it seemed that head offices had decided to leave them both to their own devices on earth. The only constant was Aziraphale – well, and the paperwork for hell.

They traded more favours. Crowley always had to get creative, but he got _good_ at it. He sometimes wondered how Aziraphale fared with the temptations but never dared to ask. He couldn’t bear thinking about the consequences and still did, in his darker moments.

Was that what he was doing to Aziraphale?

Crowley had discovered the terrifying emptiness on the other side of faith, had made his home there in fact, but Aziraphale… he wasn’t cut out for this. He believed so much. It would break him to fall, Crowley was sure of it. And still they continued – a favour for another favour.

In the Globe theatre, they tossed a coin for it. When Aziraphale had to go to Germany, Crowley volunteered – he had a bit of a long-term tempting engagement that would take a couple of weeks. Crowley got good at the miracles: In Edinburgh, he bribed the brother. In Germany, he shepherded in a priest to save a girl’s soul at the last minute. On and on they went.

* * *

Crowley went to Paris because one morning he woke up in London and felt the distinct absence of the angel, and that couldn’t be good. He went round his residence.

The door was, of course, locked, but locked doors had always been more of a suggestion to Crowley. There was a note on the table, written in Aziraphale’s precise hand – the one he used to send messages back to heaven, not his usual scribble that Crowley had gotten used to.

_Gabriel, if you’re reading this, I’m in Paris to mitigate some of the damage done by the demon Crowley._

That was interesting, since Crowley hadn’t been to Paris in two hundred years. And he definitely wouldn’t go around now, what with Paris being the epicentre of a shockwave that seemed destined to sweep all of Europe. People’s rule. Crowley felt there was some potential for synergy there, if he could convince people that they shouldn’t adhere to a higher authority, church or state, but frankly couldn’t be bothered.

But why was Aziraphale in Paris?

The answer, it turned out to be, was food. He really should have guessed.

“You got reprimanded?” Crowley said, when they had finished their crêpes and were sipping cups of wine. Something in his gut had twisted at the words. Maybe they had been too careless.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” Aziraphale said. He looked silly with his floppy hat. Despite what Crowley had said over Aziraphale’s choice of clothing earlier and no matter how mind-blowingly stupid it had been, they had looked good on him. Nevertheless, the hat was endearing, the way it bounced every time Aziraphale moved his body to underline a point, just like now as he shook his head and the hat shook with it.

“Hmm,” Crowley said, noncommitting.

“It really was awfully kind of you to help me out, though,” Aziraphale was quick to add. Crowley glared at him, and Aziraphale backtracked. “I meant… It was really…”

“It’s fine, angel.”

Crowley was feeling placable. Or maybe that was the wrong word – he felt generous, like one might feel towards a damned man. That scared him.

Was Aziraphale falling? Could it be happening so slowly that the angel himself didn’t even realise it was happening?

Crowley settled further back into his chair and half closed his eyes. Ever-so-carefully, so as to not alert the angel to what he was doing, he reached out.

Aziraphale’s faith still burned bright as the first time Crowley had felt it. There was no wavering, no ins for doubt to take hold. If Aziraphale was falling, it didn’t affect his fervent belief in God.

Crowley opened his eyes to look at Aziraphale. The angel had an absent-minded smile on his face, the one Crowley knew by now meant he was considering a second helping of whatever it was that they had been having. One hand delicately held the cup of wine. The other rested on the table, quite close to where Crowley had placed his hand.

Crowley wanted to indulge in the feeling. He wanted that clarity of mind. He wanted the peace and the stability that came with it. But it wasn’t his to have.

He withdrew. Aziraphale still smiled, and it made Crowley’s chest ache with an echo of belief. Crowley looked at their hands, so close to touching. He could reach out. Use Aziraphale to feel an echo of heaven.

No. What they had was more than they should have. Every second the angel spent with Crowley meant another damning moment that would speed on his fall. He pulled back his hand, linked it firmly with his other hand under the table, and grinned at the angel.

“Seconds?”

* * *

Crowley knew, objectively – was utterly convinced – that he was going to be the downfall of Aziraphale. This was how he was wired: he sowed the seed, made it sound like a small thing, not so terrible at all but oh, when it sprouted. It bore terrible fruit.

Why was it always fruit? Fruit was innocent.

Aziraphale opened his bookshop and Crowley told himself to stay away. Keeping in the spirit of their arrangement – which had somehow morphed into an Arrangement, capital letters implied – he stayed out of Aziraphale’s way. Or he tried. Mostly he tried and failed.

His resolve usually waivered when Aziraphale walked past his door around lunchtime.

“What do you want to do tonight?”

Aziraphale always smiled, and Crowley tried to steel his heart, and then he said something like ‘ _the theatre’_ or ‘ _how about dinner and a walk, it’s nice out?_ ’ and Aziraphale’s smile brightened.

This particular night, they had settled on music. Aziraphale was much more intrigued than Crowley. Music was a very angelic thing, Crowley always found. Must be all the singing they did up in heaven that Aziraphale missed on earth.

In any case, Crowley found it pleasing enough, made more pleasing by the company he was keeping.

“Could you have dreamt, back in the garden, that it would all turn out like this?” Aziraphale asked during the intermission. He was holding a little flute of sparkling wine, imported from the Rhineland which was freshly open for business after all that Napoleon nonsense. Unpleasant little man. Crowley had almost protested when hell had sent him a commendation for that.

Crowley looked around. “Could I have predicted this? Out of all the possible permutations of events?”

He shook his head. Aziraphale chuckled, good-naturedly. He’d been in a good mood lately, what with the opening of his bookshop and London so booming and vibrant. Crowley had just thought things were too quiet, but he didn’t tell Aziraphale.

“Makes you wonder what Her plans for all this are, doesn’t it?” Aziraphale asked, taking another sip of his champagne.

Crowley could only stare.

“Angel…” he said carefully, “We _know_ Her plans for this. They wrote them down right at the beginning. One day, it’s all going to end, and your side is going to fight my side in the final battle for dominance.”

“Oh, that’s just nonsense. They can’t possibly mean that, right?”

Aziraphale chuckled again, clearly in too good a mood to let it be ruined by Crowley’s realism. For a moment, anger surged up in Crowley. How could Aziraphale be so sure? So trusting?

He knew the answer before he had fully formed the question.

This wasn’t something to begrudge the angel for. This was why he sought out Aziraphale after all, time and again. This was why he loved him.

As soon as the thought came up, Crowley felt it to be true. There was none of the surprise he thought might accompany it. He envied Aziraphale’s faith, but he loved him because he kept it, and because he acted it without turning sanctimonious. Not like all the other angels.

“You’re right, it’s probably just propaganda.”

A bell rung, reminding them that the intermission was about to end. Crowley put a hand on Aziraphale’s arm to guide him back inside. One day, Aziraphale would fall. And Crowley would not be able to forgive himself for it.

* * *

After all the things they had gone through, surviving the London Blitz seemed a small thing. It was just another world ending. They had seen many of those.

Crowley was used to vengeance from above and hellfire below. Somehow, the Blitz combined both of those things into a uniquely human desire for destruction. Next to him on the passenger seat, Aziraphale was shaking. Crowley was too polite to say anything about it.

Back in those days, the Bentley was just passing into what would be old age. Thanks to Crowley’s devoted attention, it was running as smoothly as the day it was first assembled – a little better even, most likely.

Right now, Crowley was taking full advantage of the fact that one, he did not actually have to watch where he was driving and two, he had a very shaken up angel in his passenger seat who, consciously or not, was still directing all of his attention on keeping the bombs from falling on them. Crowley devoted this freed up attention to subtly watching Aziraphale from the corner of his eye while pretending to watch the road, which, of course, was absolutely devoid of cars.

He had thrown his hat on the backseat. It had survived the initial collapse fine, but the falling ash afterwards had seared some nasty holes into it, and he was feeling too lazy to fix it, or else too wound up to focus on it. He was painfully aware of the smell of smoke clinging to both of them. Not sulphurous, but close enough to hellfire. Hellfire and heavenly vengeance.

He turned a corner. The tires squealed. So did Aziraphale.

The first sound he had made since they had left the church.

At that, Crowley did look over. Aziraphale was clutching the bag of books as if his life depended on it, his knuckles white.

“I’m sure you would have gotten out just fine, angel.”

Crowley pitched his voice low, aiming for soothing but quiet enough that Aziraphale could ignore it if he didn’t feel like talking. Crowley desperately wanted to reach out but restrained himself. Bad enough that Aziraphale had almost made a deal with Nazis. There was no need to add fraternization with a demon to the list of reasons heaven had with being mad at him tonight.

Aziraphale didn’t say anything at first. The bookshop was getting closer. Crowley didn’t know what he would do if they arrived there and he would have to leave Aziraphale like this.

“Sometimes I don’t know what I would do without you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said. It froze Crowley’s blood. It sent pinpricks up his neck. It cut off his air supply.

Surely Aziraphale hadn’t meant it to sound so desperately honest. He was just shaken up.

Crowley had gotten very good at reasoning himself out of raising his hopes.

“You’d be an upstanding member of the heavenly host,” Crowley said. He was trying to make light of the situation, but as the words left his mouth, he already recognised how wrong they sounded. He winced.

He took another turn and there it was, just down the street: the bookshop. Crowley willed it further away, but the road stubbornly refused to obey his command. Another miracle he was incapable of performing.

Aziraphale looked at Crowley, and there was something in his expression that frightened Crowley. It was in the way the moonlight that came in through the Bentley’s windows caught in Aziraphale’s eyes, it was in the way his mouth curved.

“I think that would be rather boring, wouldn’t it?”

He got out. Crowley’s hands tensed around the steering wheel. He was a model of self-control.

The thing was – the car door never closed. After a couple of tense seconds of failing to hear that telling slam, Crowley risked a glance to the passenger side. Aziraphale was standing on the sidewalk, one hand on the door. Crowley couldn’t see his face from this angle.

“Something the matter, angel?”

Aziraphale said something to the empty air outside the car.

“What was that?”

“I said,” Aziraphale repeated, speaking up, “In the church you said… it would take a _real_ miracle.”

“Yeah,” Crowley said, “And you delivered admirably. I’m very grateful for the mutual saving.”

“But you’ve been performing miracles for me for at least a thousand years!”

“Yes, and you’re welcome.”

Crowley wanted to get out of here very fast, right now. This was not a conversation he wanted to have. Not with Aziraphale, not now, not ever. And especially not like this, with Aziraphale on the curb and the bombs only half an hour behind them.

“Crowley…”

“Gotta go!” Crowley began. He reached for the door, but Aziraphale’s hold on it was firm.

“Come inside, please, Crowley?”

Aziraphale ducked his head back inside the car. He looked vulnerable. The grip he had on the bag of books was still too tight.

Crowley really didn’t have much of a choice.

* * *

The first thing Aziraphale did was re-shelve all of the books.

The second thing he did was go upstairs. Crowley followed him, not eager to start a conversation he didn’t want to have in the first place.

The third thing Aziraphale did was put away some dishes that had been sitting out to dry. Crowley began to feel like he was missing something.

What should he say? Was there something he _could_ say?

Eventually, Aziraphale ran out of things to occupy his hands. Crowley was still there, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said, “It’s just… sometimes it’s very hard for me to remember that you’re… you know.”

Crowley understood immediately. He understood a little too well. It was the secret he had known since the first time one of the other angels had regarded him with that _look_ , all the way back in the beginning – like Crowley didn’t quite fit. Nothing was as repulsive as something challenging heavenly harmony. And Crowley had been something of a challenge, back in the day. Still was.

“Yeah,” Crowley said hoarsely.

They stood, a few feet apart in the small kitchen. Aziraphale had lit the top light, but all the windows had been blocked out with something even better than newspaper – heavenly intent. Aziraphale’s clothes, though he had taken his coat off, smelled faintly like smoke. Crowley hadn’t bothered with his hat, and now his hair was taking vengeance for it by refusing to stay slicked back. Every couple of seconds, a strand would fall back into his face.

“You’re welcome for the… saving. Though I probably should say thank you as well, seeing as you did all the final work. So… thank you. For that. And I really feel like nothing more needs to be said on the subject.”

“You really can’t perform miracles anymore?”

It burst out of Aziraphale like he had been trying to hold back something very painful. He looked at Crowley with wide eyes.

Desperate. That was the impression he gave.

“They took my rewards card when they kicked me out of the club, angel,” Crowley said, as if phrasing it as a joke could mask all the pain and embarrassment he felt.

He knew the angel would have questions. This was what he got for running a scheme against time with an immortal being. Anyone else he could have survived. But with Aziraphale, it had only been a matter of time before his luck ran out.

Still, it had been a nice streak, he mused. Even if he lost Aziraphale now, it had been worth it just to be a little closer to him.

“Can we please sit down for this, Crowley?”

Aziraphale motioned to the dinner table. They took their seats opposite from each other.

“All those miracles… were you lying to me about performing them?”

Aziraphale spoke calmly, methodically. This was a far cry from the fussy, nervous demeanour he usually displayed.

“No!” Crowley exclaimed. “They were executed to the letter.”

“Then how did you do it?”

Crowley shrugged, avoided Aziraphale’s eyes. “I got creative.”

Aziraphale let out a breath of air. “Alright…”

Crowley wondered absent-mindedly whether the table was real wood or painted to look like the real thing. Seemed a waste not to have real wood, but Aziraphale was a strange creature.

“But you can still… make things happen.”

That wasn’t a question on Aziraphale’s part. That was a statement.

Crowley rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t enjoying this conversation. However, Aziraphale had yet to get angry, or call him disgusting, or tell Crowley he never wanted to see him again.

“I have an open-ended list of things that don’t work anymore. Do you want to hear it?”

Aziraphale nodded. He looked very small, the way his hands were clenched together and the way he was worrying his lower lip with his teeth.

“Miracles that no longer work, even if I think really hard about how evil it would be: saving somebody from harm out of compassion.”

“That one seems fairly straightforward,” Aziraphale said. Crowley glared at him.

“I’ve tried getting somebody into the school of their choice on their own merits one time. Didn’t work. Had to bribe someone in the administration.”

“Oh, I remember that one!” Aziraphale exclaimed.

“Miraculous reunions are apparently a general no-no, unless they lead to one party cheating on their partner,” Crowley continued, “And bringing together lovers that are meant to be just straight-up doesn’t work.”

“What does work, then?” Aziraphale asked.

“Temptation,” Crowley offered.

“Well, obviously.”

Aziraphale stared at his hands. Crowley couldn’t read his mood, which had something to do with the fact that he had not expected Aziraphale to react like this. He had expected disgust. He had not expected to still sit at the table with Aziraphale after the confession.

“Why do you think this is?” Aziraphale wondered. “I mean, is it because you’re not cut out for good deeds, or because miracles are reserved for angels?”

And here they were at last.

“I told you, remember?” Crowley paused, steeled himself. “I don’t believe in God.”

He closed his eyes. Waited for divine fury. The pain of rejection. The inevitability of the fact that, after nearly six thousand years of relatively smooth sailing, the difference of their natures finally claimed them.

“Of course!” Aziraphale said, “You’d need faith to pull off that kind of a miracle, wouldn’t you?”

Crowley opened one eye. Carefully. Instead of disgusted, Aziraphale just seemed… fascinated.

“Not that I’m not enjoying this,” Crowley said carefully, “But aren’t you supposed to be upset about this sort of thing?”

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, and there was a look of fondness on his round face, “When have I ever struck you as particularly dogmatic when it came to you?”

Crowley tried to parse Aziraphale’s words – he thought for a second, he understood what the angel was trying to say, and a look of realisation crossed his face, but he pushed the thought away as soon as it crossed his mind. Aziraphale just saw the understanding on his face and nodded along.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said, imparting the syllable with meaning that failed to reach Crowley.

Something had just happened, and Crowley wasn’t sure what it was. He only knew that he was sitting here, confessing all of his worst fears to Aziraphale, and the angel hadn’t thrown him out yet. Well, almost all of his worst fears.

There was one he would keep very close to his chest.

“I hope this doesn’t change anything,” was what he said instead.

“No, of course not.”

Aziraphale withdrew almost imperceptibly, but Crowley, who had been very attuned to any sort of rejection, noticed. Somehow, he’d missed the right thing to say.

He racked his brain, trying to think of something else. When he came up with nothing, or at least nothing that was not brutal honesty he wasn’t ready for tonight, he got up.

“Till the next time?”

Aziraphale nodded but avoided Crowley’s eyes. “Yes, quite.”

* * *

The war passed. Europe made peace. In a small Swedish town, a general store that would morph into the world’s largest furniture retailer was founded. Both Crowley and Aziraphale wrote it up as a success.

And things didn’t exactly settle down but they… got comfortable. Crowley and Aziraphale got comfortable in London, England got comfortable in Europe, and eventually Europe got comfortable on the world stage when the two superpowers stopped using it as a staging ground for their dick measuring contest. Crowley considered popping over the continent when the Berlin wall fell, but ultimately found it too much work.

Sometimes he thought back to the conversation with Aziraphale that night, but things had steadily improved between them and Aziraphale never brought it up again.

* * *

In hindsight, it seemed only natural that Hell would pick this age to set their final plan in motion.

“I don’t think Francis Fukuyama knows how right he is,” Crowley commented dryly when he and Aziraphale were having one of their covert lunches, “This really is going to be the end of history. And all other things. Permanently.”

Sometimes, when he said things like that, Aziraphale protested. Other times, he didn’t. This was one of those latter times.

“We could run away together,” Crowley suggested another time. Aziraphale laughed, and Crowley let it go.

* * *

He was almost too late. He almost lost Aziraphale. Then he almost lost him again. If the apocalypse taught him anything, it was that he couldn’t live without Aziraphale.

Against all odds, they came out on top.

* * *

After the apocalypse (averted), Crowley was surprised to find there were still new personal lows for him to reach. Earth ever surprised him with its ingenuity.

He was at a bus stop.

Life, so far, had never caught him dead at a _bus stop_.

“Do you feel… different? After the whole thing?” Crowley asked. It was dark. The bus they were waiting for was still a ways away, and in Crowley’s books, nothing was more embarrassing. Who knew if it would show up at all?

He shook his head imperceptibly. Everything was still raw: his mind chose to fixate on the most inconsequential thing. Everything was still fresh: an open wound that reminded Crowley of the first time he had been cast out from what he knew into a new world.

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley.

“God’s divine presence and love is as clear to me as ever,” he said. The sting echoed across the ages, since the first time Crowley had heard those words in the garden.

So that hadn’t changed. Crowley was relieved to find that Aziraphale would be spared the pain of his fall, but a small part of him had hoped… well, maybe he had hoped that they’d sort of be equals now. No side but their own. But this was a reminder that Aziraphale was still closer to God’s grace than he, Crowley, would ever be.

“Nothing’s changed for me, either,” Crowley said. It was an admission, which was why he couldn’t look Aziraphale in the eyes for it. They fell quiet, and the night air closed around them.

With the most worrying sound Crowley had ever heard a motorized vehicle make, a bus pulled around the corner.

“It says Oxford!” Aziraphale said. Crowley got off the bench, dusting himself off.

“Yeaaah, but he’ll drive to London, anyway. He just won’t know why.”

They got on the bus. Crowley gave the driver a smile by way of a fare. They moved through the brightly lit bus like through a bad dream. The fluorescent lights stung Crowley’s eyes. Aziraphale’s skin looked ashen.

As they sat down, Aziraphale took his hand. Crowley’s heart fluttered worryingly.

“My dear,” Aziraphale said once they were seated. He’d called Crowley ‘dear’ many times over the years, but with his hand firmly grasping Crowley’s, it suddenly took on a new meaning. Crowley tried to regulate his breathing.

“You drove a burning car most of the way from London to Tadfield.”

“You should have seen Hastur’s face,” Crowley chuckled, “Heh. Dumb bastard.”

Aziraphale squeezed his hand.

“And when I needed you to come up with something to save us all, you did! And not just anything!”

“I was there,” Crowley reminded him. Then, when Aziraphale gave him a pointed look: “I’m not feeling down on myself, Aziraphale!”

“You’re not listening to me,” Aziraphale said pointedly, “Crowley… those were real miracles. Proper miracles.”

His voice was quiet. It reminded Crowley of the reverence people displayed in a Church, an awe so profound it could only be honoured in a whisper.

“I…” Crowley hesitated. “I just got creative. I had to.”

He looked at Aziraphale. The angel had a fond smile on his face. Their hands were still linked, a fact that was currently taking up ninety percent of the processing power in Crowley’s brain.

The remaining ten percent could see where the angel was going. Crowley had brought it on himself. Perhaps if he ignored Aziraphale, the angel would get the hint, and decide to drop it, and Crowley could go back to being miserable and Aziraphale could go back to being safe.

He was not quite resolute enough to let go of Aziraphale’s hand.

“Hm. Let me ask you something else.” Aziraphale went on, seemingly unbothered. “Do you think when the humans feel faith it’s anything like what angels feel? Or what you used to feel?”

Crowley shrugged, unable to leave a thread unpicked when Aziraphale put it on the table. “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“I think it’s a lot smaller, a lot more insecure and a lot lonelier. But that doesn’t mean it’s any less valuable.”

The bus moved through the night. Outside the husk of metal, everything was abnormally normal. Inside, two supernatural creatures were dancing around a topic they had avoided for thousands of years.

It was only them, and the place where their hands joined. The rest of the world – no matter how hard they had worked to save it only yesterday – didn’t really interest them right now.

“I think you’re the first demon who managed to find their faith in God, dear,” Aziraphale said.

“No,” Crowley replied emphatically.

“Think about it,” Aziraphale said.

“But… it’s nothing like before!”, Crowley protested. The bus chugged on, oblivious that it was currently the location of more desperate theological conversations than sixty percent of the hospitals in Britain.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Aziraphale said after a while, when the bus had begun the process of entering London proper, “Maybe you’re a very creative demon. But I’ve been thinking.”

“That’s never a good thing.”

“All those years, what I was doing, it wasn’t really angelic. Oh sure, I was following Heaven’s orders to the letter, making sure that everything got done, but you’d have trouble saying that my heart was in it when it came to orders from head offices. And you were doing your demonic business, but not out of a conviction to do evil – it was just a day job! All we ever wanted was –“

“– to be left alone,” Crowley finished.

“I was going to say ‘peace and quiet’, but yours will do as well,” Aziraphale conceded. “My point is, that’s not a very heavenly thing to want. And I’m sure it’s not a very hellish thing, either.”

“We’re on our own side,” Crowley repeated, an echo from a desperate week with one more kick to the metaphorical groin that he could manage. The angel had arrived at his conclusion precisely seven days too late.

They did say _better late than never_.

“My _point_ is,” Aziraphale reiterated, more irritably this time, “We’re on our own side. And maybe that means we’re our own thing. Not quite angel. Not quite demon. An angel who can enjoy the pleasures of the earth. A demon who can believe in God.”

“Yeah, but it’s a shitty reward,” Crowley said bitterly.

Aziraphale’s hold on his hand shifted from something casual to something gentle, like one might cup an injured fledgling bird in one’s hand.

“Crowley,” he said, “Do you think God abandoned you?”

“She can forgive you,” Crowley said, and he felt like he was finally getting to the heart of the matter. All of the bitterness that had built up over six thousand years and maybe God was on their side, but it still felt like he was something lesser, something other. “Why did I have to fall?”

It was his stigma. It was the black spot he could never wash out. It was his original sin, and he would never be able to repent for it. No matter how much Aziraphale believed that Crowley was redeemed now – they were still two fundamentally different creatures. Crowley had fallen, and Aziraphale had not.

Aziraphale didn’t respond immediately. It didn’t matter. Their time horizons went beyond what mortals could understand.

The bus dropped them off in front of Crowley’s apartment. It was at this point that Crowley finally had to let go of Aziraphale’s hand to unlock the door and let them into the apartment. He advised Aziraphale to avoid the puddle of demon goo, then went to fetch a bottle of wine. When he came back into the living room, Aziraphale was perched on the edge of the couch.

“I think God needed you down here,” Aziraphale said. His face looked pinched – probably he was aware just how bad it all sounded. “I needed you down here.”

Crowley sighed. “I’ve always hated Divine Plans.”

He sat down next to Aziraphale, poured them each a glass. The red sparkled with imagined flames.

Aziraphale gingerly took a hold of Crowley’s hand again.

“ _Ach der Teufel ist nur des Contrastes wegen da, damit wir begreifen sollen, daß am Himmel doch eigentlich etwas sei_.“

“What was that?” Crowley said. He was pretty sure it had been German. Aziraphale had always been the language enthusiast (though he hadn’t necessarily been _good_ at it). Crowley had just held out until the invention of Google Translate, and then worked very hard to make the suggested translations just that little bit less accurate.

“Just something I read in a book once,” Aziraphale said. “But listen, Crowley, you don’t have to adhere to any divine plan anymore. That’s the whole point! Whatever they had planned, Heaven or Hell, it’s over now!”

He focused intently on Crowley, and Crowley felt overwhelmed with the closeness and the earnestness and the sheer amount of love pouring out of the angel. It came in waves. He could feel it.

“We’re left with the terrible freedom of choice. The perk of humanity.”

It was all too much. Aziraphale had fallen a little bit, and Crowley had risen to meet him. That was one way of looking at it.

“I just want it to have been enough,” Crowley said, “I think I can live with one side despising me, but the idea that I’m just two different iterations of terrible?”

He sighed. “I just want to go home.”

Something on Aziraphale’s face shifted. He drew his brows together. His hold on Crowley’s hand tightened. But he didn’t say anything.

Crowley continued. “I just wish I could know… somehow… If there only was –“

“– A sign?” Aziraphale finished with a rueful smile that wasn’t a smile. “You’re not the first one to ask for that.”

They fell silent. Crowley catalogued every doubt that crossed his mind. Every eventuality. All the things that could go wrong.

“Crowley…” Aziraphale said carefully into the silence that stretched out between them, “… can I ask you one thing?”

“Anything,” Crowley said, with the same lack of forethought and loving indulgence that he had applied to Aziraphale for longer than he cared to think.

“But you have to promise not to be upset. If you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to, and we’ll never speak of it again.”

“Oh, spit it out!” Crowley groaned.

“No, you have to promise first,” Aziraphale insisted. Crowley looked at him.

“I promise not to be upset.”

“Alright.” Aziraphale took a deep breath, then breathed out and in again. “You do know that I love you, right?”

Crowley stilled. Aziraphale noticed the tension.

“Only because you never said anything, but it seemed… Well, I wouldn’t want to assume, really… It’s just that I love you very much, and suppose I realised I should say it at least once, seeing how we both don’t really know what’s going to happen to us now…”

Crowley lifted both hands.

“Stop. Timeout.”

He was breathing heavily; he couldn’t help it.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said meekly.

Crowley laughed weakly.

“Angel, you have no idea…”

He thought of the countless times he’d attempted to count the laughter lines around Aziraphale’s eyes across the years. He thought of their hands almost touching in a café in Paris while the world burned around them again. He thought of all the desperation of the last week, when he thought he would lose Aziraphale. He thought of the quiet longing he’d kept tucked away in his chest for so long it hurt to even think about it, because acknowledging it might hurt Aziraphale.

“I love you,” he said with the desperate intent of a dying man, “I have loved you since before I thought myself capable of it. I have loved you so long that my love has grown roots and sprouted and thrown off seeds and died and sprouted again and grew new roots. I have loved you every time you believed in something where I couldn’t, and I believed in you instead…”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said quietly. His mouth hung open.

“… I just didn’t want to ruin you,” Crowley finished.

Aziraphale’s expression hardened. Both of his hands surged forward to grasp Crowley’s upper arms and hold him in place.

“Anthony Crowley, you are the most ridiculous demon on this earth.”

Aziraphale kissed him, then. It was short and desperate, a little angry. A spiteful kiss, Crowley thought. How very fitting for Aziraphale. Then he forgot to think for the brief seconds that Aziraphale held him in place with a firm grip on his arms and the softest touch on his lips.

 _He only says that now because it doesn’t matter anymore now_ , a malignant voice at the back of Crowley’s head offered. Crowley pulled back. Aziraphale didn’t let him go far.

“Aziraphale…”

“This,” Aziraphale said quietly, “Is the only sign I need. The only reward.”

Crowley felt shaky, like his limbs would fall apart if he moved too much. Aziraphale loved him. Aziraphale loved him, but Crowley was still a demon. He shouldn’t be asking so much. Here he was, given a fresh start, a new chance, already setting out to ruin it.

“I’m sorry, Aziraphale,” he said, steeling himself.

The worst was how heartbroken Aziraphale looked even when he put on a brave face. It tested all of Crowley’s resolve, and he almost didn’t come out on top.

Almost.

“I’ll go to bed now if that’s alright with you,” Crowley said, getting up from the couch. He tried adjusting his clothes, but they were covered in dirt. There was no saving this outfit, though it had been a good one.

“There’s just one last thing…” Aziraphale said, “Agnes’ prophecy.”

* * *

“I just want it to have been enough. _I want to go home_.”

For almost as long as Crowley could think, his perspective had been downward-facing. In Mesopotamia, it had been the stairwell of a narrow tower, his path descending while Aziraphale went upstairs. In Rome, there still was an entry in the lower structure of the Coliseum.

Even now, as he was being dragged up the escalator to Heaven’s main entrance, gagged and bound by Gabriel’s black ops squad, he was still facing downwards.

_I just want to go home._

The wish echoed in his head. It mocked him.

The thing was – he didn’t even recognise it.

Heaven had evidently taken the time of his absence to redecorate, getting used – in however minimalist a fashion – to the idea of material presence. There were walls in stark white, reminiscent of the clouds that humans liked to picture angels on. There were windows. There were stairwells. On one memorable occasion, Crowley thought he caught sight of a desk.

It was all still depressingly bland.

_I just want to go home._

This was his home. It had the right name.

He looked at the angels they passed – they had come out in the thousands to catch a glimpse at the wayward Principality. Some of the faces recognised. When they gave a nod of recognition, Crowley had to remind himself they were directing it at Aziraphale.

This was his home. It had all the people.

Eventually, they left the curious, gazing eyes of the other angels behind. Crowley was glad. The way they inhabited human bodies was unsettling. It was like they wanted to remind you that holding a physical form was beneath them. Aziraphale was their opposite in every aspect, Crowley could feel it. Wearing the angel’s body should have made him fit right in. Instead, it gave Crowley a front row seat to all the ways Aziraphale was not like other angels: too soft, his angelic intent rounded down into the comfort with which he inhabited his human body; too comfortable, the way he blended into life on earth like a duck taking to water; too narrow-minded for the all-encompassing expanse of the angelic host.

It struck Crowley that they were singling out Aziraphale for following the task he had been given on earth, nothing more.

Alright, maybe that was a generous interpretation of Aziraphale’s crimes in the eyes of Heaven.

They brought Crowley into a room the size of an airplane hangar. There, they sat him down on a chair and bound his arms.

_I just want to go home._

This was not how home treated anyone – neither him nor Aziraphale.

Gabriel entered the hangar. Unlike the other angels, he seemed almost comfortable in his body: He certainly had figured out the trick to commanding attention with the right posture. It had taken Crowley several hundred years to figure it out, but then he had also spent a significant amount of time before as a snake.

“Ah, the lost son!”

Crowley carefully kept a bland expression. He’d never liked Gabriel. Angels like Gabriel were so sure of themselves, the pompous bastards.

“Gabriel.”

He’d had so much practise listening to Aziraphale shape every imaginable syllable into words that it wasn’t hard for him to mimic the angel. On the contrary, it felt almost comfortable, like a well-loved overcoat.

Gabriel gave him a deprecative look. Crowley remembered that look. But Gabriel didn’t know he was facing somebody who was an expert at not fitting into the host.

“We were all very saddened by your behaviour, Aziraphale,” Gabriel said sternly. The fatherly tone he adopted made Crowley gag. Gabriel sounded like somebody who had _heard_ about the concept of caring but didn’t quite get its application.

“I did the right thing,” Crowley said. The more he thought about it, the surer he became of it. Seeing Heaven had unsettled him, but he was back now.

“That’s disappointing to hear,” Gabriel said, “I’ve been told that only repenting sinners can expect mercy these days.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Well, it was worth a try.”

And chuckling, he added: “Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep!”

It struck Crowley then: Gabriel wasn’t arrogant. He was simply convinced that he was right. He _had faith_.

But if this was faith, the one thing that had eluded Crowley for over six thousand years – he didn’t want it. This was nothing like Aziraphale’s faith: Not born out of love and the desire to do right, even if it sometimes strayed off the path of the righteous. This was faith with a blindfold on.

Finally, he understood what Aziraphale had been trying to tell him only yesterday: True faith was what happened when you didn’t know and believed anyway. True faith wrestled with what it meant to be a part of God’s plan. True faith meant questioning whether there was a plan at all, and then moving on not thinking too much about what God would want, but what was _right_.

It didn’t take a lot to believe in God when you were singing Her praises next to Her throne. Crowley had known enough Seraphim to confirm that. But it took a lot to believe in God when the only signs of her presence were relegated to the Biblical days.

Crowley and Aziraphale had done it anyway. Like humans.

Crowley wasn’t even surprised anymore when the demon showed up. They would demonize him and Aziraphale for the same actions they excused in themselves. The double standard was nothing new to him, but he could face it now, because he knew he was right.

As he stepped into the hellfire, he wondered what Hell was doing to Aziraphale at this moment, whether they had seen through the disguise that had fooled Heaven. The thought came with the guilt, now familiar to him. But alongside it, a new thought formed in his mind: Aziraphale was doing this for him. Crowley was doing this for Aziraphale.

It really only was the two of them now.

* * *

“I need to ask you something.”

It had taken all of Crowley’s self-control to not pull Aziraphale close and hold him for a very long time the minute they reconvened in the park. All of the bitterness he had felt only yesterday seemed so petty now. But he had waited, and they had had lunch, and then they had walked back to the bookshop. Now they had settled in the familiar, cluttered backroom of the place, and Crowley couldn’t take it anymore.

Aziraphale looked up. The look of fondness was plastered on his face as if it had gotten stuck there, but he had kept such a respectable distance that it pained Crowley. He had been a fool. But he would make it right.

“Anything, my dear.”

“You said you weren’t quite an angel anymore. Are you okay with that?” Crowley asked, dreading the answer.

He had to know. After that, he would make his peace with the rest: being cut off from Heaven and Hell, being cast out into a world he didn’t quite understand. Time to leave the garden.

Aziraphale took a while to answer. Crowley tried not watching his face for a while, and then decided the only thing worse than watching Aziraphale’s face as he came up with an answer to the worst question Crowley could imagine was _not_ watching his face.

“I will admit there were times,” Aziraphale said, “When the thought of what our relationship could mean for my standing in heaven terrified me. You were, after all, my enemy.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale, unmoving. He wasn’t even blinking. Aziraphale, aware of the attention, continued steadfast, though his voice shook just a little.

“However, when I chose Heaven over you, it made me miserable. I realised that I don’t need Heaven’s approval. I know that God is on my side, and that is enough.”

“I thought I put you here,” Crowley said quietly, “All those years, the Arrangement, the temptations you helped me out with… I thought I was just slowly speeding up your fall.”

“Oh, I think that was the least of Heaven’s problems with me.” Aziraphale smiled ruefully. “I was never as obedient as the other angels. I believed, but I used my own head for it.”

Crowley eyed Aziraphale. The angel looked as if a weight had been lifted off him – he didn’t move with as much of the stiffness that had always stuck to his shoulders, and he smiled more freely at Crowley.

The terrible freedom of choice, Aziraphale had said. The perk of humanity. Crowley could feel it now. It was different from his fall, because no judgement came with it. It was a coming of age.

“I suppose you could say…” Aziraphale hesitated, piecing together a sentence word by word. “You didn’t offer me any fruit I wouldn’t have willingly eaten myself, Crawly.”

Crowley closed his eyes. He tried swallowing, but somehow that didn’t stop the tears from welling up.

“Aziraphale…”

He choked.

Aziraphale’s hand was rubbing soothing circles over his upper arm. He leaned forward a little. “Kiss me, would you?”

Crowley leaned forward obligingly, unthinkingly, the way he did every time the angel asked him for something. Kissing Aziraphale felt like taking a weight off his shoulders. He could feel, in the background, radiating ever-so-brightly, the familiar sensation of Aziraphale’s faith.

Crowley now recognised it as the faith that, by proxy, had helped him complete the first miracles since his fall.

He pulled back. He felt as though he’d emerged from underwater after a very long time without knowing where up or down was. The relief hit so suddenly; he started giggling and couldn’t stop it.

“What is it?” Aziraphale asked, rightly concerned.

Crowley waved his hand, unable to respond. When he finally calmed down, he took a deep breath.

“I wanted what you had for so long, I never asked myself why. I always figured envy was demonic enough of a reason. But the longer I think about it…”

He looked at Aziraphale: his blond curls, his round face with the warm blue eyes, his comfortable form that Crowley found so endearing. He couldn’t remember when envy for what he couldn’t have morphed into coveting something he wanted. But he knew that he would trade any miracle or the feeling of God’s love for the feeling of being loved by Aziraphale in a heartbeat.

“I really just wanted you.”

Aziraphale blushed. Crowley kissed him again.

**Author's Note:**

> I have to give credit to two German authors.
> 
> The title is taken (no surprises here) from Goethe's 'Faust' (specifically the prologue in heaven). 
> 
> Aziraphale quotes Georg Büchner's 'Leonce und Lena': "Oh, the devil is only there for contrast, that we may understands that there's something to heaven after all."
> 
> I would also like to thank Hozier for providing the inspiration for this fic by writing 'Foreigner's God', and my conversations with seasidesonnets, which account for 90% of my fic output. 
> 
> You can yell at me in the comment section or on tumblr at veganthranduil.


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